Growth in color management has resulted in an increase in software packages that are used to generate International Color Consortium (ICC) profiles. ICC profiles describe color attributes of a particular device or viewing requirement by defining mappings between device color space and device independent color space. Typically profiles created by a standard organization, e.g., International Organization for Standardization (ISO) are selected as printer input profiles when printing cyan, magenta, yellow, black (CMYK) print jobs.
A printer input profile is used to convert jobs from the source's color space to the device independent color space. A printer output profile is used to convert colors from the device independent color space to the destination printer's color space. Each standard printer profile was created based on a specific printing condition (e.g., paper attributes, such as finish, weight, rendering intention, etc.) and defines the color gamut of the profile. A color gamut refers to a subset of colors that can be accurately represented in a given circumstance by a certain device. A common problem occurs when printing CMYK jobs in that the printing condition of a selected printer input profile unlikely matches a selected printing condition on a printer at which the job is to be printed. Accordingly, a significant mismatch occurs between the printer input profile gamut and the printer output profile gamut. Such a mismatch results in an inability to correctly produce many colors, or the color capacity of the printer not being entirely used.